School being built in Darfur IDP Camp

Assist International team member Steve Savelich recently returned from the Southern Darfur region of Sudan, where he stayed in one of the IDP camps near the city of Nyala.

The IDP camps house around 36,000 inhabitants with thousands of children seeking refuge from the war-torn countryside. Families forced to flee their homes see the IDP as a temporary situation, but with the continued genocide in Darfur, many of the internally displaced children will end up spending their entire childhood in the camp.

Steve met with EDOOS (Educational Development Organization of Sudan), a local NGO that has started a school in the camp in order to give the children access to education and provide stability in their lives during this time of fear and uncertainty.

Initially working with 180 children in different classes, EDOOS was able to build two additional, temporary classrooms in 2007 to allow for a total of 259 children. In February 2008, at the end of the academic year, 212 of the 259 children had been advanced to the next class level. However, more schools, classrooms and teachers are needed to fulfill the growing demand.

With the approval to build another school in the camp, Assist and EDOOS began construction this fall. The school should be completed by the middle of December and it will hold over 300 children. There will be classrooms for kids in Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades, with an additional grade added each year until elementary education is fully functioning for all grades.